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"Voyagers", the study in white on white of two Down East dories was painted in the artist's studio in Ashton, Maryland in 1983. Mort found the inspiration for this painting at the beginning of his involvement with the NASA art program. The United States has a long history of commissioning artists to be part of government exploration programs. Just as there was an artist traveling along with Lewis and Clark to record that important part of American history, NASA asked Greg Mort to join the ranks of other well known American artists such as Norman Rockwell and Robert Raushenberg to chronicle several historic events in America's space age.
Although many people think Mort is paying homage to his beloved Maine, "Voyagers" is really a tribute to the NASA space crafts Voyager I and Voyager II which were launched in 1976 to explore the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and Neptune. The white theme is reminiscent of the so-called "white room" where the astronauts are readied in a dust free environment. The artist sees the fishermen of old who traveled miles from shore into unexplored waters in the same light as today's brave celestial travelers who venture across the sea of space.
Much like artist Maxfield Parrish Mort is a highly skilled model maker and often creates models or dioramas for his paintings. For "Voyagers" he built two one half inch scale dories from white mat board and arranged them in the eastern window of his studio.
The original watercolor painting of "Voyagers" is in a private art collection in Falmouth, Maine. The overall image size of the limited edition four color lithograph of "Voyagers" is 22" X 27". It was printed on museum quality Mohawk Superfine eighty pound paper by the fine artisans of Westland Printers in Burtonsville, Maryland. Each piece is individually hand titled, numbered and signed by the artist. "Voyagers" was published in a limited edition of only nine hundred and fifty.
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